Friday wrote:That would be rad as fuck, and an amazing twist that nobody could possibly see coming (except you, I guess) but sadly, the canonical start point/divergence for the Mirror Universe was shown already in Enterprise.

That in and of itself doesn't preclude this from being set in the Mirror Universe, though I guess all the Federation/Vulcan stuff probably does. I never watched Enterprise, and haven't watched much of any of the other series either, come to that.

Mothra wrote:Enjoyed this last ep of Discovery quite a bit. Feel like this show's out of weeds now.

Yeah, it did seem like a big improvement. The only "this is an obviously bad decision why are people letting this happen" bit was the Captain/Admiral are Banging part, which I'm not going to spoiler tag because it's been obvious every time they've shared screentime. This is a pretty clear breakdown in discipline and chain of command between two of the most important leaders in a wartime situation; why the hell are the other Federation leaders okay with her overseeing him? Even if it weren't really obvious that their relationship is sexual (Narrator: It was.) they talk about how they're old friends all the time.

But, y'know. By the standards this show's set for "Why is anybody doing any of these things and how do they keep getting promoted?" that's a pretty minor complaint. It was a straightforward episode written around character relationships and it mostly made sense.

Godddd the internet really went out of its way to spoil this weird-ass twist for me, like a month in advance.

This one was good, but my god is it Discovery as all hell, good and bad. The hallway-to-hallway action is blah and awkward, and the ship stuff is too brief and frantic to really keep tabs on, but it’s all rendered in incredible detail. Kol is like the most cartoonishly evil villain in Star Trek since the Nemesis guy, which is really really odd in a show of grays like this. I am like completely done with this first-episode-onward arc of Michael’s, but Stamets is wonderful, the captain’s finally getting interesting, I like Ash, Tilly is consistently great, so it’s all gravy there.

Klingon stuff could not be less interesting, again, because they’re such TOS-level mustache-twirling baddies. There were all these implications in the first episode that they had this weird and fascinating culture that humans had no understanding of, with ships built with incredibly intricate detail sculpted into the hull and the interiors, but nope, they’re flesh-eating all space orcs with piles of rotting dead bodies just laying around.

Tone is all over the place, too. I loved the first half, with all the political/captaining stuff with Lorca dismissing Starfleet’s orders, to them all rearing up for their daring plan, to the battle, then BAM when they’re on the ship, they’re immediately funneled into that room with all the stacked bodies, where they sit and stay for latter half the episode while Ash goes through horrific Saw flashbacks. So now all the momentum is slowed to a stop and we’re all focusing on how fucked up Ash is, while the action outside is cutting to the Discovery warping all around the Sarcophagus, doing something they never actually got around to explaining, while Stamets is like on the electric chair. Then on to Michael challenging Kol to a fucking knife fight, which is definitely really classic Star Trek, but felt so enormously out of place in THIS show. I mean, I’d love to embrace the shlocky parts like you would for Voyager, but the surrounding show is usually really good and dramatic, so, it’s weird to have goofy moments like this.

I think one of the tradeoffs they made with putting in such a dark, violent, brooding storyline and moving at such a tense forward pace, is that you don’t get room to breathe and enjoy it. Statmets dancing with Michael in the time loop ep was probably the last time I really felt like this show was taking some time to enjoy the world its built.

It feels like Saru, Tilly, Statments, Culber and even Lorca are in one show, where they have these 9-to-5 episodic adventures foiling Mudd every week, whereas Michael, Cornwell, Kol, L’Rell, and Ash are in a completely different shakey-cam 24 hell war infinity show that never fucking slows down or takes a breather as they barrel uncontrollably and helplessly into their next disastrous decision.

Oh, and my theory on L'Rell (potentially a huge future-spoiler if true) is that she was in love with Vok before he agreed to go through the procedure to change him into a human. She then regularly, in her eyes, made love with him to ease the horror of being turned into this alien, and to "heal" him somehow after causing him mind-breaking pain in the surgery.

I don't think she's got a thing for humans, she's got a thing for Vok.

I appreciate there being a plot reason why the discovery is full of loose cannons and fuckups

Congrats to Mothra I guess? I mean they've described what horseshit they've done regarding Voq and Tyler at least three times now and I still don't understand how it leads to their actions or mindset

for all the talk about honor klingons go on about they are pretty good at being sneaky bastards i mean once you're literally wearing an enemy combatant's skin you don't get to complain someone did a backstab on your team

L'rell is a good villain in that whenever she's on screen I don't want her to be on screen I just want her to go away jesus she's like a talking, messianic burnt wad of bubble gum

Lorca just telepathically realizes the jig is up with him pretending to be from the Best Universe? I'd imagine he'd try at least once to tell Michael "hey we did it there's a party at the throne room right now with cake"

why is michael's go-to plan always "pretending to do what the villain wants until they're in the inner sanctum, then shooting everyone"

why does it keep working

"we're going to die" "no i'm precognitive and we're not" I BET THE WRITERS REGRET HAVING THIS PARTICULAR MOOD-KILLING FACTOID RIGHT NOW

the imperatrix of the Asshole Universe sure cuts michael a lot of slack oh god michael burnham is jon snow

anyway i look forward to the next few episodes of actors slowly chewing their way through basic klingon sentences and more flashbacks to the l'rell sex scene, bye now

I'm gonna cross-post some stuff I wrote up about DISCO, reacting to the last three eps. Overall, oh my god did they not all ALL tie any of this together, nor stick the landing. This show peaked at the space whale time loop ep.

SPOILERS ALL UP AND DOWN THIS THING

Third-to-last ep

That was an insane mix of dumb fun, enormous disappointment, lost opportunities, and cool crazy horseshit. I guess, right off the bat, why spend two episodes in a miserable aimless slog through the hellverse, then once everything's all set up, only devote ONE episode to bringing it all to a conclusion? They JUST revealed Lorca was a mirror universe usurper of the throne, which I fucking loved, and now they devote a single episode to him fully overthrowing the empire, taking over the city-sized capital flagship, casually revealing himself to be a racist and hand-wringing villain, then being thwarted in a cartoon kickfight before getting pushed into a deus ex machina ship-exploder.

Like that just sucks. I wanted a lot more from this whole situation, considering what we had to put up with to get here. It's the same with every other major twist they've thrown at us so far - nothing comes of any of it. Vok was immediately disarmed and imprisoned the instant his plan came to fruition. Lorca was immediately defeated and killed the instant his plan came to fruition. Evil Stamets does jack and dies when the show stops knowing what to do with him. What the fuck was the point of any of this? Why spend so much time frantically setting it all up if they're just going to knock it down and reset to zero within one episode?

Ugh. Was really hoping for Lorca to have undergone some change during his time in the Federation, and for him to return as captain, because then we'd have actual interesting character chemistry in the future. Then all of this would've added something. Also why the blue fuck did we set up Tilly as captain if she NEVER GOT TO DO ANYTHING?! HOLY shit that was disappointing.

Oh also WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS MICHAEL BEST FRIENDS WITH THE EMPRESS?!?! SHE MADE HER PICK A SLAVE AND EAT HIM ONE EPISODE AGO!!!

WHY DOES MICHAEL ALWAYS MAKE THE WORST IMAGINABLE DECISION?

Things I enjoyed:

Lorca was great. I liked just watching him lead a rebellion to overtake the ship and just generally be a dumb fun action guy.

I honestly enjoyed the dumb cartoon punch fight. It was fucking ridiculous and fun. I wish this show either committed to full farce, or allowed some kind of light-hearted touch here and there.

Some good action with the Discovery itself. That warp-into-reality-web-navigation sequence was cool, and I genuinely loved the visuals of everything involved.

Really glad Saru is captain now, rather than Michael. If Michael had been made captain, good god.

Would've loved to see Lorca revealed, and put into the position where he willingly went on very Federation-ey missions, so you have this tension between conquest and exploration. To have someone who saw no value in Federation ideals, seeing firsthand the rewards throughout the show, would've been nice.

They had that bit in the time loop ep where they had to, by law, save the endangered space whale and Lorca was just sorta gritting his teeth and giving orders to do it. I really wanted that sort of stuff to take hold, where the military desperation was balanced with the idealistic good.

Argh.

Second-to-last ep

Okay my brain like split right down the middle during this second-to-last ep. My higher brain functions were just absolutely capital-S S c r e a m i n ', but the lizard part actually enjoyed it.

There were a lot of scenes of people just talking. Talking in a hallway, talking in a briefing room, talking in their quarters, talking in the mess hall. I liked that a lot. That doesn't happy very often in this show. It seems insane that I'm saying that about a Star Trek show but here we are.

I really like the Admiral and the guy playing Sarek, so, great seeing a lot more of those two. The scene with Michael and Sarek was delightful. The scene with the Admiral just being straight with absolutely everyone about how fucked up their situations are was refreshing.

In a similar vein, that scene between Michael and Tyler was really well-acted and genuinely affecting, which is insane considering how dumb Tyler's entire side of the conversation was (and how dumb it felt that Michael would let it get to her). Sonequa Martin really is great in this role, even when they give her nothing at all to work with.

Terraforming sequence was wonderful in a very Star Trek way. I'd love to see a lot more of that, with some kind of big constructive scientific project as the "action" of the episode, and a lot less ships shooting at each other.

As utterly shlocky as it was, I did like the idea of Sarak and the Emperor having a talk about their dimensionally-displaced, twice-adopted common-law daughter.

Nice seeing more Andorians and Tellerites in this one - been feeling like there's not a whole lot of non-humans in Starfleet proper up until now.

So that stuff was good.

The context for absolutely everything was maddening.

The entire episode is them talking about how fucked up the klingons are, carrying out suicide bombing attacks on star bases and like, destroying the atmosphere of a planet to slaughter everyone on it, etc. The Admiral talks to that klingon woman in the prison and she tells them "we are unable to stop, we have no control over ourselves, and you must stop us," which is like the final nail in the coffin for any hope we had for an interesting klingon race. It's wild that they've taken away the only defining trait of that star trek race - their honor - and turn them into savage hypocrites.

Starfleet decides that their tactics aren't working and that they need something completely different in order to survive, which I think makes sense dramatically (what was that Quark line about humans only being civilized so long as they had their creature comforts), but it in the story arc of the show, it just goes to further show what hypocrites humans are, and yeah, as VC said, makes this entire universe no more interesting or unique than any Good Guy race vs any Bad Buy race in any shitty sci-fi show.

VC wrote:(Michael jesus christ, is she just the embodiment of plot movement or what?)

Michael, boy howdy. VC is on the money here, but like, taken in its own universe under its own terms, one thing that's really been grating on me is how obsessed everyone is in Michael - Lorca, the Emperor, Saru, the klingons, Starfleet - and how special and unique she is. How 'nobody but her could've done what she did'. Beyond her ability to remain stoic while acting in the mirror universe, it doesn't feel at all like she brings anything to any situation but competent military ability and a commitment to not get pulled off-mission. Think of every major challenge she's faced, and she's succeeded by following a pre-set strategy that Saru or Tilly/Stamets put together. The living planet, Kor's ship, the ISS Charon rebellion - she has succeeded by simply not being the one who fucks up the plan. Now that is incredibly valuable in a war, but it isn't like she's got some unique trait on the level of Picard's diplomacy, Sisko's strategy, Janeway's absolute all-in resourcefulness, etc. She doesn't think differently in any way, she's just good at keeping on-task, which sucks as the 'thing' that makes her a hero.

VC wrote:If Lorca is supposed to be a bad guy, then we are supposed to retroactively look at his behavior and go “yeah, that was bad guy stuff and we as people should be above warmongering etc.” But Lorca’s behavior fits in just fine with the rest of Starfleet, which is apparently a huge military organization.

I won't get into the fact that bringing the genocidal Terran Emperor over here has immediately, within one day, resulted in Starfleet electing her into the captain's chair for what I'm going to assume is a genocidal plan to destroy the klingon homeworld. They could not _wait_ to get another mirror universe warrior into command, apparently.

Yeah I dunno.

Sleazy: Not to enable your desperate hope that any of this could fit in-canon, but... had a thought. Tyler and Vok are now one being. Imagine if the virus idea was true, but the virus changed them into a hybrid race like Tyler - Klingon on the inside, but human-looking on the outside. That would be their solution to the war - making the alien race literally more like them.

Which would be all kinds of fucked up, but, this is Discovery.

Final ep

Okay so, that finale. Good god.

I'll say I legit enjoyed the first half quite a bit. It sucks that the klingon homeworld is just An Episode Of Syfy's Defiance™ in this new rebooted edgy Trekverse. Absolutely nobody on the planet acted anything like the klingons we've seen in their military, up until now. They acted like regular human beings with makeup on, which is generally how Star Trek goes. Joining them were green humans, with like, no attempt even slightly made to make them look like some kind of vaguely alien race. How the fuck did Discovery make such a radical leap with klingons, then go backwards all the way to TOS for the Orions? It's weird. On Enterprise they had like this rigid gender-class system where the males were dumbass worker drones and the females were pheromone queen bees. Here, it's just like, okay everyone is a normal human but they're green.

That said, I enjoyed them just putting together a team, going down to a planet, and trying to gather info. It was nice just seeing them talk to each other and talk to people without shit exploding every five seconds. I really loved Tilly, in particular - she is a joy to watch and I'm glad she got high as shit and was dumb as hell and also smart as hell at the same time.

The Tyler scenes were also reletively interesting, so, that's good to see. I wouldn't mind just getting more insight into klingon culture through him.

The emperor was kinda fun in places. I still wish it was evil Lorca but whatever I guess, fuck it.

Michael existed and occupied space, then later gave a speech that probably Saru should've given.

Now the entire last half of this ep was, of course, absurd garbage, thrown together in a panic and devoid of any sort of meaning or payoff or affecting drama. I cannot a-_beeelieve_ that the solution to every single problem in this show was "threaten everyone into peace with a planet-annihilating bomb." Michael makes this big song and dance about how the emperor's plan "isn't Starfleet" and how "our ideals are all we have," but then like, they end the war and she redeems herself by using the _actual real threat_ of a horrible non-Starfleet Terran Empire plan.

Like, they have put a bomb under their enemy's home, given the detonator to a dictator that they approve of, and forced the government of the empire to accept her as their ruler, or they will all die. So what, Starfleet ideals are upheld through fear? The Federation survives through a threat? How fucked up is it that the empire's second-in-command is a Federation-installed earth-aligned human? Fuck you! At least own it, like the emperor would, rather than backpatting yourself for "sticking to your principles" just because it's not your finger on that detonator! Fucking hell, that is some hypocrisy.

Also like, this one's a nitpick, but why the fuck would L'Rell do anything Starfleet asked, or told her to do? She fucking hates those people. She saw her love go through hell just so he could destroy them from within, then when that didn't work, they mocked her, "killed" the Vok personality, beat her, then told her they'd installed a bomb under her home and gave her the detonator. And then assigned the walking talking zombie corpse of Vok to watch her. Is there a fucking chance in HELL she would ever use that detonator? Wouldn't she gently seal that into a triple-locked box the first free second she got?

And why wouldn't she just let the fleet destroy Earth? She wants that pretty goddamn bad after her messiah was killed by a Starfleet officer - the same one that just beat her and installed a bomb.

God, that was dumb.

Why would any klingon at all believe her? That is an insane thing to do - hold up a PDA and claim that there is a BOMB AT THE HEART OF THE PLANET I AM ON THAT I WILL DETONATE IF YOU DO NOT ELECT ME PRESIDENT

Christtttttt

Yeah I do not want to spend more time with this crew, if this is the shit we're going to have to put up with. I really wish they went with the anthology concept so we could get a fresh start in season 2. Like, what more do they have to say? Do anyone want to watch them explore a universe that's already been explored in previous shows?

Really chafes my nips that Saru apparently isn't captain, too. I guess he's just gonna stay as second-in-command to some new actor? Ugh.

I liked the Lorca reveal. It was the only reveal that really worked for me of the various reveals in the back half of the season. It's been clear from the get-go that our crew was working for the bad guy and would eventually have to reckon with that, but I assumed he was just regular-evil, not Mirror Universe evil.

I expect we'll see him again -- either Lorca Prime is still out there, or Mirror Lorca somehow survived. (Having him fall into the MacGuffin rather than just die from getting shot certainly seems like a deliberate choice.) Or both. For any other show, I'd think "both" would be too much, but given that this show doesn't know the meaning of "too much", I wouldn't bet against it.

Mothra wrote:Why would any klingon at all believe her? That is an insane thing to do - hold up a PDA and claim that there is a BOMB AT THE HEART OF THE PLANET I AM ON THAT I WILL DETONATE IF YOU DO NOT ELECT ME PRESIDENT

come on by now you know that if something needs to be proven Sarek just walks out of nowhere, mindmelds the person and says "yep that dude is on the level"

Ever since the death of Roddenberry, Trek has strayed further and further from what makes Trek Trek.

The interesting thing was at first, Roddenberry's death was actually a good thing for the franchise, because his rules were like straightjackets, preventing the show from really exploring a lot of themes, especially the darker ones. So for the latter half of TNG and DS9, his death allowed the writers to really delve deep into what makes the idealistic characters of the Trek universe tick, pitting them against enemies and plots that the Big Rod would never have signed off on.

Rod was like The Stick Up His Ass Lawful Good Paladin who had absolute control over his party. When he died, some NG and CG people took over and really explored the nature of Good in an uncaring universe. But now fucking random LE and CN and CE and NE people are just shitting on everything, all the time, and it's a worthless mess.

Look, you can even exactly plot it.

ToS: 7TNG, the early Rod seasons: 7TNG, the Rod is dead seasons: 10DS9, when Rod had been dead for awhile and hey lets make a section of Starfleet that is super cool with genocide, assassination, etc: 8VOY, when Rod has begun to spin rapidly in his grave and Janeway just does whatever the fuck she wants because the writers are CN: 6ENT, when Rod is now being used as a source of infinite energy as his angular momentum is now emitting more energy than all suns everywhere, combined, and every single fucking episode has lasers and shooting, no, seriously, go back and watch ENT: 4STD, when Rod has ruptured, and everyone and everything is fucking dead, across all possible multi-verses, but wow it looks pretty because CGI has gotten better and now not only does every single episode have lasers and shooting, but thats all that every episode has, there is no context or characters its just 56 minutes of CGI spaceships shooting at each other and close ups of people's faces that are angry: 1